Qualla: Hugh Town https://qualla.com/hugh-town en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/hugh-town-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Hugh Town https://qualla.com/hugh-town Hugh Town: Introduction https://qualla.com/hugh-town/ Photo credit Gerald England, CC BY-SA 2.0. Hugh Town stretches across a sandy isthmus barely a few hundred metres wide, pinned between two beaches that face in opposite directions. To the north lies Town Beach, where the Scillonian III ferries crowd in from Penzance and the principal harbour of the Isles of Scilly does its business. To the south, Porthcressa Bay opens onto open Atlantic water. Walk the length of the town in fifteen minutes and you have walked from one ocean to another, with a thousand or so people, a granite-walled garrison, and a Methodist church between you and the sea on either side.

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Image: Gerald England | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/hugh-town-wp/gbge-hugh-town-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Hugh Town: A Town Named for a Hill https://qualla.com/hugh-town/ Photo credit David Lally, CC BY-SA 2.0. The name Hugh comes from the Old English word hoh, meaning a promontory or piece of elevated ground. The same word survives in Plymouth Hoe across the water in Devon. The peninsula now called the Garrison was, in earlier centuries, simply The Hugh, and the town that grew at its e...

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Image: David Lally | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/hugh-town-wp/gbge-hugh-town-a-town-named-for-a-hill.mp3 0:06 2 full Hugh Town: The Day They Were Sold Their Land https://qualla.com/hugh-town/ Photo credit Daniel Bagshaw, CC BY-SA 2.5. Almost everything else in the Isles of Scilly belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall. Hugh Town does not. In 1949 the Duchy sold the freehold of the town to its inhabitants, an event still recounted as the moment the islanders became, on paper, masters of their own front doors. The har...

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Image: Daniel Bagshaw | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/hugh-town-wp/gbge-hugh-town-the-day-they-were-sold-their-land.mp3 0:06 3 full Hugh Town: Pilot Gigs and the May Day Roar https://qualla.com/hugh-town/ Photo credit Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0. On the first weekend of May, Hugh Town fills up. Crews arrive from across Britain to row in the World Pilot Gig Championships, an annual race between fast six-oared boats that descend from the working gigs once used to ferry pilots out to incoming ships. The competing teams base ...

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Image: Rept0n1x | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/hugh-town-wp/gbge-hugh-town-pilot-gigs-and-the-may-day-roar.mp3 0:06 4 full Hugh Town: Ancient Bones Beneath the Houses https://qualla.com/hugh-town/ Photo credit Bob Embleton, CC BY-SA 2.0. When new housing went up on the Porthcressa side of Hugh Town in 1949 and again in 1960, the builders dug up cemeteries containing the remains of native Britons dating from the 1st to the 4th century AD. A Roman altar was discovered on the Garrison in the 19th century and now sit...

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Image: Bob Embleton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/hugh-town-wp/gbge-hugh-town-ancient-bones-beneath-the-houses.mp3 0:06 5 full Hugh Town: Living at the Edge of the Weather https://qualla.com/hugh-town/ Photo credit Bob Embleton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Hugh Town has one of the mildest climates in the United Kingdom. Temperatures rarely dip below freezing; the most recent serious snowfall was during the 2018 cold wave, and even that was modest. The Azores High nudges summer weather towards a dry trend, and the surrounding Atlant...

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Image: Bob Embleton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/hugh-town-wp/gbge-hugh-town-living-at-the-edge-of-the-weather.mp3 0:06 6 full